


satellites: no smut edition

by nymja



Series: satellites verse [2]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: F/M, No Order 66 AU, the "No Smut" versions of chapters
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-30
Updated: 2018-12-30
Packaged: 2019-09-30 10:52:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,177
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17222657
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nymja/pseuds/nymja
Summary: this fic is a collection of "no smut" versions of chapters from my fic satellites. i'll title each chapter the chapter # it is in the main fic (ex: 25 is chapter 25 in satellites, and so on). sex will probably be alluded to, but it's going to be on a fade-to-black basis at most. there's also likely to be some awkward transitions here and there -- bear with me 8(thanks for reading!





	satellites: no smut edition

**Author's Note:**

> this fic is a collection of "no smut" versions of chapters from my fic satellites. i'll title each chapter the chapter # it is in the main fic (ex: 25 is chapter 25 in satellites, and so on). sex will probably be alluded to, but it's going to be on a fade-to-black basis at most. there's also likely to be some awkward transitions here and there -- bear with me 8(
> 
> thanks for reading!

 

\--

  
**35 ABY** **  
** **Eight months later**

 

The door slides open with a pressurized sound.

Rey’s fist drops, not even having knocked. She feels eyes on her and so she looks up, hazel meeting brown. He doesn’t say anything, and she can feel her heart thudding harder in her chest.

“Sorry,” she manages, awkwardly. “I should have holo’d. Or comm’d.”

He doesn’t move, face unreadable. 

And she suddenly feels stupid for stopping at his apartment. Even stupider considering her state: there’s a fresh bacta patch slapped across her forehead, the trousers of her robes torn at the left knee. She’s dirty, not having been able to get all the smell of smoke out of her hair and clothes even after several refresher cycles.

...and he hasn’t seen her in almost a year. His hands are digging into the frame of the door. Rey doesn’t know how she expected this to go, but it wasn’t like this _.  _ In even the worst-case scenario, Ben at least  _ said words.  _

She clears her throat, hand fiddling with the holster strap over her shoulder as nerves start to build.

“I was chasing a lead on Erep and got done ahead of schedule. Naboo was on the way back to Coruscant. I thought…” Rey falters when she sees him visibly swallow, his eyes a little wider. “I hope you got my messages. I tried to send more, but they were censored.” 

Rey clears her throat, cheeks burning. “And I meant to come earlier. But Kyp grounded me for six months aside from chaperoned missions and then I had to attend the re-education programs on relationships-”

Ben grabs her arm, pulling her forward. Rey barely avoids tripping over her own feet before the door slides close behind her and he’s pressing her up against a wall. 

His lips descend on hers in a crashing motion, the arm not holding onto her bracing his weight above her head. Rey quickly drops her pack in favor of wrapping her arms around his neck, her booted feet rising on their toes. Ben’s lips part and she takes the opportunity to deepen the kiss, relief flooding her. When his shields in the Force drop away, she finds his relief in equal measure, an old anxiety finally dropping. Her fingers start to twist into his hair, longer now--slightly past his shoulders. Hers is shorter, cut choppy above her shoulders after part of it got singed on a mission and she decided she liked it. They’ve missed a lot of time. She’s missed  _ him _ .

Ben breaks their kiss in favor of cupping her face in his hands, eyes scanning her expression-- looking for something, although Rey’s not sure what. Finally he exhales, his body going lax as he presses his forehead to hers.

“Don’t be gone that long again.”

Rey brings her hands to the outside of his, letting her thumbs trace over the backs of them as she closes her eyes. She can count one hand the amount of times someone has been waiting on her. 

“I’ll do my best.”

Ben makes a low noise that sounds like agreement, hands sliding to her biceps, then her waist.  The weight of them is heavy and comforting. She feels grounded by it, by him. When her hands fall from his, she brings them around his neck. For awhile, they just breathe together, and he pulls her into an embrace. Her head tucks under his chin, her cheek against his chest. He’s wearing some brocade thing-of-a-vest, and the pattern of it presses into her skin but she doesn’t mind. She’s not letting go until he does. 

This must be what love is like, she thinks. Not the way she’s known it before, but the kind she has been vehemently warned against her entire life. She feels her body relaxing in his hold. 

“You smell like a furnace,” he says quietly into her hair.

“Something blew up,” she admits. “How was your day?”

He lets out a short, dry laugh at that. She likes the way it makes his chest vibrate, how she can feel his exhale on the top of her head. “Not as eventful.”

“Probably a good thing.”

His long fingers thread through her hair. 

“Probably.” 

His lips press to her temple. She feels his thumbs trace over the sides of her hips--exploratory. It’s a soft action, but she can sense the small change it’s made.

His voice is steady when he speaks next. “I want you to stay tonight-”

“Okay,” she agrees before he finishes.

His surprise registers as his body going still. It makes her smile, because there’s no doubt in her mind that he prepared at least five discussion points on the subject. But eight months is a long time to wait, and it’s a long time to think. And Rey knows she wants this. All of it. 

When Ben remembers that he can actually move, she feels two of his fingers under her chin, tilting it up. She allows herself to be directed, opening her eyes and feeling both happy and sad at the way he looks at her. 

“By staying, I mean-”

“I know.”

“And that’s...what you want?” His face is neutral aside from the slight tic under his eye, but his feelings are easy for her to read:  _ With me?  _ Is what he really means.

It’s different, him hesitating now that they’re both here. Especially with his confidence in initiating a relationship. But Rey can understand insecurity, the fear of not being enough. It’s not a logical thing, and it’s something that’s ingrained in both of them. 

“It is.” 

“Do you want to go inside?” He finally asks.

They are still in the threshold, aren’t they? Rey smiles and it brushes his lips.

“Does your stupid apartment still not have furniture?”

He lets go of a surprised laugh--that dry, half-chuckle half-scoff she’s grown fond of. It makes them brush lips, too. “It has furniture.”

“Then I guess I’ll come in.”

He kisses her again, long and lingering.

 

\--

Afterwards, they sneak glances at each other, almost shy. It wasn’t about lust, their first time, and so attention was spent on other things. Now that it’s over, Rey takes time to actually  _ look  _ at Ben. At the muscles no politician should need, the moles that really are all over. She wonders how she must look to him-- her skin permanently freckled from the sun, crossed and dotted with scars. Wiry muscles that the women of his world probably didn’t often have. She’s not insecure, but she does wonder how they’ll fit, if they’re ever able to outside this apartment.

A little awkwardly, he pulls back the blanket on the opposite side of the bed. Rey realizes she’s been leaning against a wall for a little too long, and slides in next to him. Ben relaxes at that, pulling her to him, kissing the top of her head. 

Then he asks the question neither of them want to hear.

“How long can you stay?”

“...another ten hours.”

Ben’s hold around her tightens. There’s nothing to say to that, no argument to be made, and so, eventually, they both fall asleep.

\--

Rey wakes up before Ben the next morning. They’ve moved around in the night, and are now on their sides with Rey’s arm slung over his stomach and her cheek between his shoulder blades. It’s therefore easy for her to pull away, to kiss his forehead, and to sit in a corner of his apartment ( _ still  _ furnitureless, despite the bed), and work through the idea that’s just come to her head. 

\--

Rey is just about to remove the last wire when she feels a surge of overwhelming panic. It’s not hers, and so she turns to see Ben realizing he’s waking up in an empty bed-

“I’m here,” she says, and almost instantly the panic abates. Instead, it turns into confusion.

Rey knows she must look a little ridiculous. She’s in nothing but one of Ben’s shirts (the least complicated one she could find) sitting cross-legged on the floor in front of a disassembled lightsaber. There’s the sound of some rustling sheets, bare feet walking, and then Ben’s shadow hangs over her and what’s left of her saberstaff.

She looks up, and sees that Ben’s staring at his shirt intently. 

Rey rolls her eyes. "You’ll get it back.”

“What?”

“The shirt.”

His shakes his head in disbelief. “I don’t care about-” 

He sighs, deciding to let something go, as his attention turns to the mess she’s made of his otherwise spotless apartment. “What are you doing?”

Rey runs a hand through her messy hair, suddenly nervous. “You can’t get mad about it.”

“Why would I be mad about your lightsaber?”

She cuts the last wire. Tentatively, and her heart hurting just a little, she withdraws her lightsaber’s crystal: a black stone shot through with red veins. Her first gift, her most important one. When she holds it, she can almost hear the whispers within that belonged to the ones that came before her: Qui Gon Jin, Obi Wan Kenobi...Anakin Skywalker.

Ben comes to a crouch in front of her. Rey takes a deep breath, and extends her hand, palm open, with the stone resting in the middle.

“I want you to have this,” she states, knowing as soon as she says it she means it. Because this stone is just as much Ben’s legacy as her own, even if he doesn’t want it. Maybe especially because he doesn’t want it. But Rey has so many fond memories of Anakin and Ben…

Ben has nothing of him.

He looks at her hand, then sends a slow look to the parts. “Don’t you need this?”

Rey swallows. “I’ll find something else.”

Hesitantly, Ben’s fingers hover of the stone-  
-and instantly recoil.

“That’s-”

“Anakin’s,” Rey affirms. She exhales, looking down at it. “It’s also the most important thing I own.”

“Then keep it.”

She shakes her head. “It’s not mine anymore.”

“Rey-”

“Please.”

He’s quiet for a long time. Then he stands. When she looks at him, confused and maybe a little bit hurt, he just shakes his head.

“Hold on.”

\--

When he returns from a side room in the apartment, he’s worrying something between his hands. As he gets closer, takes his position kneeling across from her once again, she sees it’s a ring.

What a man might typically do with a ring when he’s with a woman he loves doesn’t even cross her mind. Instead, she stares at it like it’s a puzzle. The band is gold, too wide for a woman’s style, and in the middle there’s a deep red gem of some kind.

Ben’s hand slowly takes the stone from her hand. “Only because it’s yours,” he mutters.

And then Rey finds the weight replaced by the ring being dropped into her palm. “Will that work?”

Rey frowns, confused. “Work for what?”

“To replace it.”

It clicks into place. Rey looks again at the ring, this time focusing on the gem as she does the mental calculations. “...it should fit.”

\--

An hour later, Rey switches on the ignition. The ends of her lightsaber spring to life, a rich burgundy shade. She stares at it, taking in the new color. It no longer matches that of her Master’s, but in that loss there’s a comfort in her having something of her own. Something from Ben.

“The ring was my grandmother’s,” Ben says after Rey finally powers it down. “She gave it to me when I was elected Senator.”

Something of Anakin’s, something of Padme’s. It feels right.

Rey looks up at him. “I’ll take care of it.”

He takes her face in both of his hands. “It’s not going to be the ring I worry about.” 

She gives a forced smile. “I’m  _ your  _ bodyguard, remember?”

Ben doesn’t play into the game, his eyes dark and troubled. 

Once again, Rey grabs his hand to kiss the back of it. She doesn’t make a habit of lying, so she can’t tell Ben she’ll be safe. She doesn’t know if she will. The Sith were out there, they were looking for her. And it was her responsibility to keep them from knowing about Ben or his family.  _ Anakin’s  _ family, the last promise she made to him. 

“I want to come back here,” she offers instead of a promise she might not be able to keep.

Ben grips her hand tightly in his. “Then do it.”

\--

Two hours later, and Rey’s prepping her small fighter for a route back to Coruscant. Ben stands to the side, a human thunderstorm, while she does her checks and sets her astronav. When she’s done, she turns to him-

-he leans down and kisses her, hands in her hair. 

“Eight months,” he reminds her flatly when they part, “Was too long.”

She gives a watery smile. “I’ll shoot for seven.”

“One.”

“Six?”

“One.”

“Five-”

“ _ One _ .”

She lifts up on her toes, presses a quick kiss to the corner of his scowling mouth.

“One,” she compromises.

\--

...she misses him before she’s even left atmo.

**Author's Note:**

> end of Act 1! HOPE Y'ALL ARE READY FOR A ~TIME JUMP~ NEXT UPDATE :B


End file.
